TK doh is a good article foh true bai. I see yuh bai dem writing up wan storm in de KN. Hey hey hey...

I read this piece yesterday and it is so different from the idiots at Fox.

Jennifer SCHUESSLER in today's Arts section of the NEw York Times in an article captioned "Charlie Hebdo Attack Chills Satirists and Prompts a Debate" asks this relevant question:

But amid all the “I Am Charlie” marches and declarations on social media, some in the cartooning world are also debating a delicate question: Were the victims free-speech martyrs, full stop, or provocateurs whose aggressive mockery of Islam sometimes amounted to xenophobia and racism?

Her fellow NY Times OpEd contributor David Brooks should answer that. question.

That conservatives see an opportunity to be liberals is astounding! They are not defending the right to be restrained because they are the most unrestrained in their parochialism! Catholics complained they sued Charlie Hebdo 12 times for defamation! The fact is no catholic went there to murder them and no catholic groups campaigned for such an event! Is not that these fellows did not test the patience of all but they served to say who we are! We are left wingers and Conservatives and hold views antithetical to each other but we do not go out and sanction the murder of of our opponents! We argue it out and let the understanding distill out of the rubble! Jsesuischarlie!

If one shifts the debate to free speech, one will see that even here in the US, free speech is not completely free. For instance, Chris Rock got a lot of flak for his SNL comments regarding the Boston Marathon and 9-11 attacks. It was deemed insensitive by many. So is the incessant mockery of Muslim sentiments. Limited to just free speech, I might argue that neither insensitive comment is greater than the other.

Free speech is contingent only it it is a subverts the law, disrupts due process etc. Chris Rock got no more than Charlie Hebdo got from many quarters. Chris Rock did not get Christians or atheists putting a fatwa on his head. Insensitivity is a moving scale and never contingent on how far one goes brings one closer to a bullet in the head.

The argument was solely on free speech and how we are not as absolute as we would like to believe. Many people loose contracts among other things for speaking freely. Not their lives granted but in other ways just slightly less detrimental.

Losing a contract and losing one's life are 2 vastly different things........Free speech does not mean there are not consequences.

However, No one should be killed for words they utter. (Sticks and Stones).

the simple fact is we do not murder people for being boorish. We avoid them!

It is good to have different views. I was looking at Bill Mahr last night and Boy he is fired up.

I agree that one should not be killed for their exercise of free speech. But my argument is not about the consequence but that we are not entirely as tolerant as we would like to believe.

This is not about the murder. My argument is if Chris Rock's Boston and 9-11 comments are insensitive to some Americans, those same Americans can't say that the newspaper's mockery of Muhammad is not insensitive. I am compartmentalizing here. 

Good show last night. 

Bill is the man!

I liked the part when they were offering Hilary Clinton and Liz Warren to Salman Rushdie for him to have a threesome. The man plainly stated that he wasn't interested in old hags. He is famous for having younger women on his arms. 

Rushdie did married a young thing. The best part was when he spoke about 60 minutes doing a piece on London Muslims and ended with Steve Croft humping the woman in hot pants.

Western free speech theory does not argue that mockery of Mohamed is not insensitive. The argument is that it is OK to mock any religion including Islam and its prophet. Being insensitive is allowed in the West. That is why the KKK and many other racist groups are given permits to preach their bile. No one murders them for it either.

The point is Chris Rock was not Dead like Theo Van Gough, or hiding like Rushdie or  have Americans advising those with American faith creep up on his office and gun him down! As I said, previously, I am a heathen and I gloriously embrace my heathenism and that includes making fun of those not like me since I am sans that kind of faith as my kind of dogmatism. I do not want to kill anyone and hope that the same sentiments is given me!

Last I checked, Chris ROck still walking around....ALIVE!

There is a difference between free speech and provocation. Hitler was granted free speech and so too the KKK.

In my view a cartoon can never be provocative.

Nehru, drop the naivete about the cartoon story. This is not the NEw Yorker or Village Voice drawing a cartoon. Read up on the history of that episode with Charlie Hebdo and how those journalist lives were deliberately endangered.

Look, they did the same to Christians, Jews and Hindus.